Last Thursday, Feb 16, we joined millions of other readers around the world to celebrate World Read Aloud Day. Brought to life by LitWorld founder Pam Allyn in 2010, the day aims at raising awareness of the many children and adults around the world who cannot read. The number indeed is shocking: 758 million. Having access to such a beautiful library as ours, with a wonderful collection of books from all over the world, it is easy to forget, that not everyone is so fortunate. Here are two special highlights from our day.

Our Primary Battle of the Books team had the amazing opportunity to Skype with author Kirby Larson. Her award-winning novel Dash is one of twenty titles on this year’s Hong Kong Battle of the Books list and definitely a favorite among our readers. From her home in Washington State, accompanied by her “wonder dog” Winston, Mrs. Larson talked about her writing, answered students questions with much detail, shared the first chapter of her novel Liberty, and made some reading recommendations of books written by other authors.

​While our students already had some knowledge about the author’s background and her books, they were interested in finding out directly from her what inspires her to write and what in particular inspired the writing of Dash; how she decides on what to write about; how she finds the information for her books; what she feels when she writes; whether she has favorite writing materials and/or a favorite writing spot; and what her favorite book is – from the ones she has written and by another author. She answered each question with so much detail and we all felt we got to know so much about her and what it means to be a writer.

​It was amazing to hear her talk about how she got to meet Mitzi’s niece (Mitzi is the main character in Dash), who actually still had Mitzi’s suitcase and other items from their time at the internment camp; how she uses primary sources as much as possible for her research, talks to experts, but also looks for example at old cookbooks for recipes of the time period she is writing about, gets old letters, post cards and maps from second hand stores for more information and inspiration. I could tell our students were surprised to hear such a successful author talk about how hard writing the first draft always is, and how she would suddenly do the laundry or clean out an old drawer, to avoid writing, that she feels much better working on her second draft and revising. A strategy that surprised all of us – teachers and students alike – is her going somewhere really noisy, like a coffee shop, to proofread her work. She said that she knows if her mind begins to wander, she needs to have a closer look at that passage again, to make sure it can hold the reader’s attention. Usually though she works at her computer at home. She also showed us some of her notebooks, another important resource for her writing.

A question that students are always curious to ask an author regards favorite books – ones they have written as well as those written by others. Mrs. Larson talked about her “book children” and how each is special in their own way, making them all her favorites. A picture book that was a favorite in her family for a very long time is How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen written by Russell Hoban. Other books she loves and recommended are Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn Dixie and Barbara O’Connor’s Wish and How to Steal a Dog (she loves dog stories like many of our readers at HKA too). Especially beautiful was the heartfelt “awww” from our students in response to her mentioning Winn Dixie, a book loved by all of us as well.

I feel a special connection, a special bond was made during this Skype between Mrs. Larson and all of us, and it is my wish and hope that one day we will be able to welcome Mrs. Larson at Hong Kong Academy.

A big, big THANK YOU, to you, Mrs. Larson, for this beautiful gift of a Skype visit, for inspiring us as readers and writers.

In the afternoon, some of our fourth graders enjoyed some more reading fun via Skype, this time with a fourth grade class, their teacher and librarian at the Jakarta Intercultural School. As has almost become a tradition, some of our teachers joined the librarian at JIS, Ms Pickles, for a bit of reader’s theatre from Mary Ann Hoberman’s wonderful book, You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You. Then students got to exchange reading recommendations. Some of the books recommended by the JIS students were The False Prince, El Deafo, Billionaire Boy, Wolf Hollow, Ella Enchanted, Wonder and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Among the books our students recommended were Roller Girl, Percy Jackson, The Time Quintet, Ellie McDoodle, Amulet and Duke. Students then asked each other a few questions about school uniforms (the JIS students do not wear uniforms) and special events (both school celebrate a cultural/community fair and book/literacy week).

THANK YOU to our WRAD friends in Jakarta for the shared reading time and the many great book recommendations. We had a great time skyping with you!